A 150-year history of the planning, construction, and development of all forms of mass transportation in Brooklyn, New York.

How We Got to Coney Island is the definitive history of mass transportation in Brooklyn. Covering 150 years of extraordinary growth, Cudahy tells the complete story of the trolleys, street cars, steamboats, and railways that helped create New York’s largest borough—and the remarkable system that grew to connect the world’s most famous seaside resort with Brooklyn, New York City across the river, and, ultimately, the rest of the world. Includes tables, charts, photographs, and maps.

Praise for How We Got to Coney Island

“This is an example of a familiar and decidedly old-fashioned genre of transport history. It is primarily an examination of the business politics of railway development and amalgamation in Brooklyn and adjoining districts since the mid-nineteenth century.” —The Journal of Transport History